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Welcome

Sean Whelton, M.D.
Program Director

Internal Medicine Residency Program

"My vision is to keep medical education at the forefront of the Mission of the Department of Medicine, along with excellence in patient care and research. We continue to attract the finest residents in the country - bright, motivated physicians who provide the best care possible to Georgetown's patients. We are surrounded by truly dedicated faculty who unfailingly devote their time to residency and student education. Our residents also play a major role in education - they learn to heal while learning to help educate both themselves and the outstanding students in the School of Medicine - not to mention a few faculty members along the way."

Dr. Whelton is the Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. He is a graduate of Duke University where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. He graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine. He completed his Internal Medicine internship, residency, and Rheumatology fellowship at Georgetown University Hospital. In 2003, he became the Clerkship Director for the medical student rotations at Georgetown University School of Medicine. His interests are in medical education at all levels. He has been awarded 4 Golden Apple teaching awards and was inducted into the golden orchard. His favorite part of the work day is morning report. He serves on the Academic Internal Medicine national committee on transition from medical school to residency. He also serves on the National Board of Medical Examiners test writing committee. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha and the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

Catherine Okuliar, M.D.Clerkship Director

Dr. Okuliar is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Ambulatory Clerkship Director at Georgetown University School of Medicine. She supervises students and residents in the outpatient setting and strives to provide excellent ambulatory education.
Dr. Okuliar’s research interests include medical education and preventive care. She is currently involved in a multi-center trial evaluating tobacco counseling curriculum for medical students and is the principal investigator of another study examining students’ development of diagnostic reasoning skills. Dr. Okuliar is also active in Georgetown Medicine’s “Residents as Teachers” curriculum which cultivates trainees' teaching skills. In addition to her teaching and research roles, Dr. Okuliar is a practicing general internist at the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital General Internal Medicine clinic.
Dr. Okuliar has a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Rice University and obtained her M.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern. She completed her Internal Medicine internship at the University of California San Francisco and residency training at Georgetown University. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. She is also an active participant in the American College of Physicians and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine.

Associate Program Directors

Joseph Timpone, M.D.

Associate Program Director
Research

Dr. Joseph Timpone is an Associate Professor of Medicine and is the Associate Program Director for the residency training program in the Department of Medicine and is assigned to the development and coordination of housestaff research and scholarly activities. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Medicine, and also completed his residency training at Georgetown University Hospital in Internal Medicine. He was Chief Medical Resident at D.C. General Hospital and then returned to Georgetown as a Fellow in the Division of Infectious Diseases. He spent 3 years at the Division of AIDS at the National Institute ofAllergy and Infectious Diseases where he served as a medical officer and worked with the AIDSClinical Trials Group and developed numerous protocols for HIV antiretroviral treatment strategies. He subsequently returned to DC General Hospital as Director of the HIVCenter, and as apart time faculty member at Georgetown. After that he became a full time member in the Division of InfectiousDiseaseswhere he currently works. He has continued to participate as a Principal Investigator in HIV Clinical trials, and coordinates all of the Infectious Diseases Fellows research activities. He is the Assistant Course Director for the 2nd Year Microbiology Course at the medical school. He is the Director of the Independent Study Projects Program at GUSOM and is the coordinator of the Annual George Kober Medical Student Research Day. In addition to his ongoing interest in HIV, he also serves as the liaison to the Transplant Institute, and has developed a focus in transplant infectious diseases. He serves as chair of the Antibiotic Utilization Committee for the hospital. As Associate Program Director he works with the medical residents to develop their research projects and link them with mentors that are working in their field of interest. He assists in the coordination of the Department of Medicine Research Day and the regional ACP meetings – both of which are venues where medical residents participate and present their research.

Amarin Sangkharat, M.D.

Associate Program Director
Inpatient Medicine

Dr. Amarin Sangkharat completed his medical education at Georgetown School of Medicine and subsequently stayed for his residency and chief residency at Georgetown University Hospital. He has been a hospitalist at Georgetown since 2005 and currently serves as the Director of Compliancy and Finances for the Division of Hospital Medicine. He has been an Associate Program Director for the Department of Internal Medicine since 2008. His focus of interests are graduate medical education, improving coordination of care amongst medical and non-medical disciplines, EMR and hospital medicine.

Mariam Ayub, M.D.

Associate Program Director
Ambulatory Medicine

As the APD for Ambulatory training, Dr. Ayub oversees resident training in the outpatient setting, which includes resident continuity clinic, outpatient subspecialty clinics, and a robust outpatient curriculum.

Dr. Ayub was born and raised in the DC area. She always knew she wanted to end up back home and is very happy to be at Georgetown! She has a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from Brown University. She obtained her M.D. at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She completed her Internal Medicine residency in Boston at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, graduating from the Primary Care track and the Clinician Educator track. She stayed on at BIDMC for a year, serving as the chief resident for ambulatory training. She currently practices as at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital's internal medicine clinic. Dr. Ayub is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha and the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Her main passion is resident education and she has designed a new longitudinal ambulatory medicine curriculum for the residency program which includes preventive medicine, behavioral health, chronic disease management, commonly encountered issues in primary care, subspecialty medicine topics, and hands-on outpatient skills training. Her other interests include ambulatory quality improvement, Hispanic/Latino health, and health policy. Dr. Ayub co-directs a Health Policy elective for residents and medical students.

Alex Montero, M.D.

Assistant Program Director
Quality and Patient Safety

Dr. Alex Montero is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and the Assistant Program Director for Quality and Safety. He is also a Patient Safety Officer for Georgetown University Hospital. Dr. Montero is a graduate of Northwestern University and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He completed his residency and Chief Residency in internal medicine at Columbia University in New York City. He then joined the General Medicine faculty at Columbia University and served as Program Director for the Primary Care Track Residency at Columbia. In 2011, he joined the Division of Hospital Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital. Dr. Montero’s interests include evidence based medicine, patient safety, health disparities, and quality assessment in diabetes care. In his role as a clinician educator, he teaches in both pre-clinical Georgetown University School of Medicine courses (Patients, Populations, Policy; Evidence-based Medicine; Physical Diagnosis) and as teaching attending in Third Year Clerkship in Medicine. In his role as Assistant Program Director, he administers resident educational experiences in Patient Safety and Quality, and he mentors individual residents on scholarship projects relating to Patient Safety and Quality. In his role as Patient Safety Officer, he is a physician champion for the implementation and maintenance of geographic structured interdisciplinary rounding throughout the Department of Medicine.

Robin Gross, M.D.

Assistant Program Director
Evaluation

Dr. Gross is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Assistant Program Director for Evaluation and Outcomes. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology/Political Science from Union College as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and her M.D. from the SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and fellowship in Pulmonary/Critical Care at the University of Pittsburgh. She joined the Georgetown faculty in 2005.

Dr. Gross enjoys working with students and housestaff in the pulmonary clinic, hospital floors and intensive care units. She also rounds as teaching attending on the internal medicine wards. Her interests include education, feedback, and learner and patient well-being and she recently participated in a federally funded multicenter trial evaluating the medical school tobacco curriculum. She is course director of the GUSOM MS2 Pulmonary elective, a Harvey Learning Society Master Clinician and Curricular Innovation Committee Professional Identity Formation Working Group chair. She also chairs the MGUH Well-being at the End of Life Committee and holds leadership positions within the American Thoracic Society. Dr. Gross was recently funded by CENTILE to learn novel educational methods at the Association for Medical Education in Europe Essential Skills in Medical Education course; she looks forward to bringing her newly acquired skills to Georgetown.

C. Komal Jaipaul, M.D.

Assistant Program Director
Clinical Competency

Dr. Komal Jaipaul is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine. She chairs the Internal Medicine Clinical Competency Advisory Committee. She received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University where she was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and her medical degree from NYU School of Medicine. She completed residency in Internal Medicine as well as a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics. After completing her training, she joined the General Internal Medicine faculty at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where she worked as a hospitalist from 2002 - 2007. In 2007, she joined the Division of Hospital Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital. She also serves as Medical Director for MedStar Washington Region Hospital Medicine. She enjoys working with housestaff and medical students, and her interests include medical education, quality improvement, and patient safety.

Kacie Saulters, M.D.

Assistant Program Director
Global Health

Dr. Kacie Saulters is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and the Assistant Program Director for Global Health. Dr Saulters attended Auburn University (War Eagle!) followed by medical school at the University of South Alabama. She completed her residency in internal medicine at the University of Virginia and also graduated from their Global Health Track through which she did clinical work and research in Uganda. Fortunately her husband’s career brought them to DC and she joined the Division of Hospital Medicine at Georgetown in 2015.

Dr. Saulters serves as a clinician educator for pre-clinical courses (physical diagnosis), student electives (tropical medicine/ultrasound elective) and as a teaching attending on the wards for both students and residents. She is a member of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, chairs the international health committee for the DC chapter of ACP, and and has earned Tropical Medicine Certification from American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She also serves on MedStar Georgetown's ethics committee and sepsis improvement task force. In her role as Assistant Program Director, Dr Saulters began and now directs the Department of Medicine's Global Health Track which provides in-depth global health education and international experiences for residents.

Ernest Fischer, M.D.

Assistant Program Director
Curriculum

Dr. Ernest Fischer is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Assistant Program Director for Curriculum and Point of Care Ultrasound. He graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a bachelors in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Biomedical engineering. He then completed medical school at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. For residency he went to The University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics training and now attends as a Hospitalist on general inpatient wards at Georgetown. His interests include evidence based medicine, diagnostic reasoning, and point of care ultrasound. He is the co-course director of the Global Health and Point of Care ultrasound boot camp elective and leads year round education in point of care ultrasound and bedside procedures.

Daniel Jamieson, M.D.

Assistant Program Director
Critical Care Education

Dr. Daniel Jamieson was born at Georgetown University Hospital. He currently is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Assistant Program Director for Critical Care Education. He is a graduate of the Weill Cornell School of Medicine. He completed his Internal Medicine residency and an added Chief Resident year at the University of Colorado. He trained in Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. At Georgetown he attends in the medical, surgical and neurosciences intensive care units and as a pulmonary consultant as a member of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. He is very involved in medical student and resident education, and serves as a member of the residency clinical competency committee. He is also the director of the MICU acting internship and oversees the educational components of the resident MICU rotation. He is the Chairman of the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Committee for Medstar Georgetown Hospital and also serves on the Admissions Committee for Georgetown Medical School. On a national level he is very active in the American Thoracic Society, serving on both the Training Committee and the Program Review Subcommittee for the international conference.